New York|Long Island Village Votes to Disband 6 Years After Incorporating

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Long Island Village Votes to Disband 6 Years After Incorporating

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A sign urging residents of Mastic Beach, N.Y., to reject a referendum to return the village to the Town of Brookhaven, which it left six years ago. The referendum passed, and the government will dissolve.CreditCreditJohnny Milano for The New York Times

MASTIC BEACH, N.Y. — It was only six years ago that residents here on Long Island took a leap into the unknown, shunning the Town of Brookhaven, where Mastic Beach was a lowly hamlet, and incorporating as a village.

The idea was to gain control over myriad problems in Mastic Beach, a working-class community on the South Shore. There were absentee landlords renting to tenants who did not maintain their yards. There were boarded-up houses. And there was a feeling that Brookhaven, a sprawling town of 486,000, did not care.

But now, after an experiment in municipal governance that spawned political infighting, fear of rising taxes and lagging services, residents have voted to abolish the village.

“It sounded good, but ultimately the village government wasn’t working,” said Harry Janssen, an airline mechanic who grew up here and voted on Nov. 16 to disband.

Proponents of the village government six years ago had pledged that the 13,000 residents would receive better services, especially in the area of code enforcement, and would pay no additional tax, since the town taxes would fall as village taxes rose. But critics, including the current village mayor, Maura Spery, said residents were sold a bill of goods.

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Maura Spery, the mayor of Mastic Beach, which passed the referendum amid fears of lagging services and rising taxes. “The village was created on the lie that it would be tax-neutral,” she said.CreditJohnny Milano for The New York Times

“The village was created on the lie that it would be tax-neutral,” Ms. Spery said in an interview in her cramped office this week. “Brookhaven has the advantage of economies of scale in carrying out services.”

With 4.5 square miles, 84 miles of roads, six miles of waterfront and hundreds of storm drains in Mastic Beach, taxes would have almost certainly gone up had the village government performed all legally required services in full. Proponents of the village had estimated that the initial annual operating budget would be less than $600,000; instead, the first budget was more than $3 million. In recent years, the mayor said, the village had fallen behind on some of those services, including street sweeping, pothole repair and storm drain maintenance.

Last spring, Ms. Spery proposed a $4.7 million budget that would have raised taxes by 125 percent, resulting in an annual increase of $250 to $300 per household. Instead, she said, the village board rejected the plan, passing a $3.8 million budget that involved layoffs and cuts in services.

“A village can be a very effective form of government, but it costs more than being an unincorporated hamlet within the town,” said Ms. Spery, who remained publicly neutral on the issue of dissolving the village.

The results of the referendum were somewhat lopsided, with 1,922 residents voting to eliminate the village and 1,215 to keep it. The Town of Brookhaven, which had been widely criticized for ignoring Mastic Beach’s illegal rentals and quality-of-life issues, has promised to work with the village government on the transition of power.

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A home in Mastic Beach. Tensions flared in the weeks before the vote, as lawn signs were vandalized and residents debated the issue on Facebook.CreditJohnny Milano for The New York Times

Rather than gloat, the town supervisor, Edward P. Romaine, said in a statement that he and other town officials would soon meet with the village board to start transferring responsibility, a process that could take up to two years.

“During that time, the town will reach out to the residents and community leaders to address their concerns and put together a plan to improve the community of Mastic Beach,” Mr. Romaine said.

Some residents expressed mixed feelings about giving up local control, pointing out that the village government had cracked down on unkempt properties. “The village was good in a lot of ways,” said Angela Nuccio, the owner of John’s Pizzeria, located in the small business district along Neighborhood Road here. “But people got scared about the taxes.”

Mrs. Nuccio, who has lived in Mastic Beach for 43 years, did not reveal her position on the referendum. “People would be in here yelling and screaming,” she said, “so I tried not to talk about it.”

Helen Lefkowitz, a 74-year-old retired home health aide, voted to disband the village but now has some trepidation about returning to Brookhaven. “It’s an unnecessary layer of government,” she said, referring to the village. “But I hope the town doesn’t neglect us.”

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Harry Janssen, an airline mechanic and village resident who voted to disband. “It sounded good, but ultimately the village government wasn’t working,” he said.CreditJohnny Milano for The New York Times

Despite its proximity to the water and its million-dollar views, Mastic Beach has remained a modest community where people can still snap up a house for under $200,000. It was settled after World War II primarily by residents of Brooklyn, in particular working-class Italian-American families from the Bensonhurst neighborhood.

Tensions flared in the weeks leading up to the vote. Lawn signs for and against dissolution of the village were vandalized. Some residents lashed out at one another on a Facebook page devoted to the issue. But many debated the pros and cons of remaining a village.

There were pleas from both sides, with some, like Nicole Chakmakian, saying that she was willing to pay higher taxes in order to correct the blight that had crept over Mastic Beach. “It’s important that we remind ourselves why we created our village in the first place,” Ms. Chakmakian posted. “Stated simply, it was formed for our survival, as the Town of Brookhaven was slowly destroying our home.”

Some residents in favor of abolishing the government criticized village cronyism and renegade operations. They cited the actions of a former village administrator who had conducted illegal background checks on nearly 500 residents.

In September, Ms. Spery announced the results of an investigation into the matter, saying that the administrator, whom officials did not name, had posed as a police chief to gain access to a law enforcement database and, using village computers, carried out searches on residents, village employees and board members.

Mr. Janssen, the mechanic who voted to disband the village government, cited the illegal background checks as the final indignity. “I don’t think we were getting our money’s worth,” he said dryly.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Long Island Village Votes to Disband Government. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe